Is Twitter a better platform for social selling than LinkedIn?

According to Forbes Twitter is more often used for social selling than LinkedIn!

Surprising? No really. Twitter has some social selling benefits that LinkedIn doesn't have. In my eyes Twitter is a combination of a personal and business content platform. This means people use their Twitter profiles to share business related content but they also share personal content as; check ins, opinions or pictures. LinkedIn is mainly focused on business related content and still struggles a bit when it comes users sharing personal content. The personal part of Twitter is one of the reasons why Twitter is a great place to find information about your prospects. The better you understand your prospect and the more your know about their interest the better you can build a strong relationship. 

But Twitter is not only a great place to find information. It is also a great place to engage with prospects and customers. You can follow people without connecting and you can start a conversation at any time. Twitter is the place were you can have a conversation with a complete stranger without annoying people. In fact, people love to have interactions on Twitter. You can interact with everybody in an organization, from the intern up to the CMO, everybody is on the same "level". This means you can have interactions with the CEO (if you are prospecting him) without writing engaging emails or InMails. LinkedIn is different from Twitter. InMails are great to get people on the phone but maybe a tweet is faster, easier and also more successful? 

To answer the question, is Twitter a better platform for social selling than LinkedIn? No, I don't think so. Aldo interactions on Twitter are easier and faster than the ones on LinkedIn I also think they have less value compared to LinkedIn interactions. A tweet is gone in seconds compared to a LinkedIn connection or InMail. When you follow your prospects on Twitter they don't follow automatically back, this takes time and this means you can't influence them with your content before they follow you back. Ones a LinkedIn connection is made you have your prospect in your network and you can start sharing interesting content to built a relationship.

Does this mean LinkedIn a better platform for social selling? No, both platforms have great benefits and are extremely useful for social selling. But, I believe Twitter and LinkedIn are the most powerful when you use them together. A good understanding of the difference between the platforms is the start of social selling. Engage with your prospects on LinkedIn and Twitter and you will become a social selling star!